The missile defense budget has been on the chopping block ever since the Obama Administration took office. In 2009, President Obama proposed $1.6 billion in cuts compared to the prior year’s budget estimate. In 2010, the Administration proposed a modest increase in the missile defense budget for FY 2011 but only in comparison to the reduced level for FY 2010. This year’s missile defense budget request is still almost 2 percent in real dollars below what the Bush Administration requested for FY 2009. In short, the U.S. missile defense program …
According to The Telegraph of London on April 8, Russia is demanding direct operational control of U.S. and allied missile defense systems in negotiations regarding missile defense cooperation. While the U.S. is right to be seeking Russian cooperation in the area of missile defense—more defensive strategic postures would benefit both the U.S. and Russia in addressing the proliferation of nuclear weapons and the missiles used to deliver them—the U.S. should reject this Russian demand.
It is an obligation of the Congress to make sure that the United States will focus more on preservation of its strategic triad, especially its submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs) and intercontinental-range ballistic missiles (ICBMs). Maintaining the triad has been essential to the efficacy of the U.S. strategic deterrent for decades. A healthy solid rocket motor industrial base is the bedrock for the U.S. ICBM and SLBM force. For all these reasons, it would be wise for the Senate to consider an amendment to require the Obama Administration to submit a …
The Institute for Science and International Security, founded by former United Nations IAEA nuclear inspector David Albright, released a report today warning that North Korea has “moved beyond laboratory-scale work” and now has the “capability to build” a highly enriched uranium-producing centrifuge plant. The report says North Korea’s centrifuge capabilities makes them “both a horizontal and a vertical proliferation threat.” The Washington Post further reports that the study “comes as a senior South Korean official warned that North Korea’s nuclear program is ‘evolving even now at a very fast pace,’” …
The Department of Defense has submitted a report to Congress that warns Iran may be able to reach the United States with an intercontinental ballistic missile (ICBM) by 2015. If Iran also successfully develops a nuclear weapon within that time, the consequences would be devastating for the U.S. and its allies in range of an Iranian missile. However, the Obama Administration’s missile defense plans to counter this looming threat will not sufficiently protect the U.S. from an Iranian ICBM. According to a White House Fact Sheet released last September, the …
Over the past year, Iran has declared itself a nuclear state and continues to expand their ballistic missile program, Director of National Intelligence Dennis Blair has testified to Congress that Al Qaeda and its affiliates are planning a large-scale attack on American soil within the next six months, and failed Flight 253 Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab has told the FBI that he met with other English speakers at a terrorist training camp in Yemen. Meanwhile, the scientist at the center of Climategate now tells BBC News that there has been no …
The U.S. Missle Defense Agency (MDA) reports that its airborne laser successfully shot down its first ballistic missile last night over Ventura, California. The MDA’s press release explains that the airborne laser “successfully destroyed a boosting ballistic missile” and “the entire engagement occurred within two minutes of the target missile launch”. According to Reuters, the laser system, called a “Airborne Laser Testbed (ALTB)” is being developed by Boeing Corporation and the MDA and is essentially a “modified 747 jumbo jet” with a “higher-energy laser” attached to the nose of the plane.
By all appearances, North Korea’s Kim Jong-il is a dictator in a hurry. “North Korea has positioned its most sophisticated long-range ballistic missile at a launch site for a test firing that could come within weeks,” the Los Angeles Times reports from Seoul, citing a South Korean newspaper account. So no sooner did Kim’s repressive regime observe Memorial Day weekend by detonating a nuclear device underground than it began to get ready above ground to test-launch another long-range missile. It would be just Kim’s style to go for maximum drama …
The Obama administration this week again questioned the workability of America’s still-developing defenses against intercontinental ballistic missiles. Only days earlier, though, the U.S. commander in the Pacific said that if North Korea tests a long-range missile, the military not only would track it but could well blow the missile out of the sky. President Barack Obama only had to give the order. “And [if] we hit what we’re aiming at, that should be a source of great confidence and reassurance to our allies and partners,” Adm. Timothy Keating, who heads Hawaii-based …
